A Marxist Critique of Buddhist Meditation
By Adrian Chan-Wyles PhD
‘We shall, of course, not take the trouble to enlighten our wise philosophers by explaining to them that the “liberation” of man is not advanced a single step by reducing philosophy, theology, substance and all the trash to “self-consciousness” and by liberating man from the domination of these phrases, which have never held him in thrall. Nor will we explain to them that it is only possible to achieve real liberation in the real world and by employing real means, that slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine and the mule and spinning-jenny, serfdom cannot be abolished without improved agriculture, and that, in general, people cannot be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity. “Liberation” is a historical and not a mental act, and it is brought about by historical conditions, the development of industry, commerce, agriculture, the conditions of intercourse...’
(The German Ideology: Karl Marx)[1]
‘While conscience mental activity had a physical basis, what we call a person’s mind is also conditioned by the physical environment, according to Buddhist conceptions. The physical objects of the external world among other factors stimulate the senses, generate mental activity, feed the mind and motivate one’s behaviour. The mind continues to be conditioned by these impacts, which form part and parcel of one’s accumulated mental experiences’
(The Message of the Buddha: By KN Jayatilleke)[2]
‘A word about what is meant by the term ‘mind’ (manas) in Buddhist philosophy may be useful here. It should clearly be understood that mind is not spirit as opposed to matter. It should always be remembered that Buddhism does not recognise a spirit opposed to matter, as is accepted by most other systems of philosophies and religions. Mind is only a faculty or organ (indriya) like the eye or the ear. It can be controlled and developed like any other faculty, and the Buddha speaks quite often of the value of controlling and disciplining these six faculties. The difference between the eye and the mind as faculties is that the former senses the world of colours and visible forms, while the latter senses the world of ideas and thoughts and mental objects.’
(What the Buddha Taught: By Walpola Rahula)[3]
Buddhism in the West is corrupted with idealist interpretations that have their origin firmly within Judeo-Christian theology, either in its overtly religious guise (as church rhetoric), or inherently as supposedly ‘de-religionised’ secular and political rhetoric. This stems from the inverted mythology that ‘thought’ (i.e. ‘god’) creates physical existence (i.e. the ‘universe’). The illogicality of this is that the ‘thought’ that emanates from the ‘brain’, creates the ‘brain’ that generates the ‘thought’. The correct and logical chain of events is that first a physical brain has to be developed, and that secondly, a developed brain then gives rise to thought. If a ‘thought’ has the potential to ‘generate’ physical matter out of ‘nothing’, science has yet to observe this phenomenon. The Judeo-Christian god is said to have created existence out of nothing, as an act of ‘will’. God in this instance, is a ‘thought’ generated in the mind that is mistaken as a definite object existing in the physical world. The reason no one can see god in the physical environment, is because god does not exist in the physical environment. God’s presence in the world is a non-substantiated ‘belief’, and the absence of any corroborating physical evidence is illogically interpreted as ‘proving’ that which it does not represent. No evidence is taken as ‘evidence’, and no god is taken as ‘god’. In reality, however, the thought generated in the mind has not left the very mind that has created it. It simply becomes surrounded by pure imagination and ‘projected’ into the environment – as if it existed independently of the mind that a) generated and b) perceived its presence. In this idealist state, nothing has happened at all, but to the idealist, everything has happened.
When Buddhism is distorted into an idealist projection, the Buddha becomes a god incarnate, and his teachings become a divine message with the presumed ability to transform physical matter just by directing the mind’s attention toward it. The Buddha rejects this idealism and defines his own teachings as ‘nama-rupa’, or an integrated system of mind and body. In this method, the Buddha rejected vulgar materialism, and also dismisses any notions of pure idealism. He would not accept that only the ‘mind’ existed (i.e. ‘idealism’), and he would not accept any assertions that only the ‘physical world’ existed (i.e. ‘materialism’). The Buddha describes the physical world as ‘acetasikam’, or ‘not of a psychological construction.’ The Buddha also describes the physical world as being entirely ‘independent of thought’ (citta-vippayuttam). The world of physical matter within Buddhist thought is not denied as existing, but is clearly defined:
‘Such matter is classified into three categories. First, there is the category of matter or material qualities, which are visible (sanidassanam) and can be apprehended by the senses (sappatigham) – such as colours and shapes. Secondly, there is matter which is not visible (anidassana) but reacts to stimuli (such as the five senses), as well as the objects of sense which can come into contact with the appropriate sense organs (excluding the visual objects which fall into the first category). Thirdly, there is matter which is neither visible to the naked eye nor apprehensible by the senses but whose existence can either be inferred or observed by paranormal vision. Such, for example, are the essences (oja) of edible food (kabalinkarahara), which are absorbed by our bodies and sustain it. Today we call them proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, etc, but in the Dhammasangani the essences (oja) of edible food are classified as subtle (sukhuma) matter, which is not directly observed or apprehended by the sense-organs. The subtle matter of “the realm of attenuated matter” (rupa-dhatu) would also fall into this last category.’[4]
In fact, far from being a system of idealist escape, the entirety of the Buddha’s thought is premised upon the firm foundation of the assessment of matter because it is through physical form that all life exists. Apart from the religious imaginations of ghosts and spirits, no true life can exist without a concrete presence in physicality. Within the First Noble Truth, the Buddha explains that human existence is unsatisfactory due to distorted (and inverted) interpretations of reality by the conditioned human mind that inhabits an ever changing, physical world. Existence is described as being comprised of ‘five aggregates’ which are defined as matter, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. The aggregate of matter is described as:
‘In this term ‘Aggregate of Matter’ (Rupakkhandha) are included the traditional Four Great Elements (cattari mahabhutani), namely, solidity, fluidity, heat and motion, and also Derivatives (upadaya-rupa) of the Four Great Elements. In the term ‘Derivatives of Four Great Elements’ are included our five material sense-organs, i.e., the faculties of eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body, and their corresponding objects in the external world, i.e., visible form, sound, odour, taste, and tangible things, and also some thoughts or ideas or conceptions which are in the sphere of mind-objects (dharmayatana). Thus the whole realm of matter, both internal and external, is included in the Aggregate of Matter.’[5]
The Buddha’s teaching is about disentangling the mind from the idealism of the religionists, and the vulgar materialism prevalent in his day. Although he rejects vulgar materialism, it is obvious that he does not reject the existence of ‘matter’ in and of itself. The assessment holds true for ‘idealism’ for although the Buddha clearly rejects any philosophical system that seeks to explain the outer world solely through imagination, he certainly does not reject the ‘agency of mind’. The Buddha explains that it is the incorrect ordering of the internal functions of the mind in relation to the physical world that contributes toward the cause of human suffering. The mind is conditioned to mistakenly think that things exist that do not exist, or that things do not exist that definitely do exist. This is the inverted thinking of theistic religion that has no basis in objective factuality. The Buddha’s answer to this apparent dilemma is not to escape from the world of materiality, but to instead reprogramme the mind to interpret the outer world correctly. This is achieved by restructuring the mind’s inner functionality so that it no longer mistakes thoughts in the head for objects in the environment, and objects in the environment for thoughts in the head. In this process of disciplining the mind and body through concentrated effort (i.e. ‘meditation’), the mind is calmed and disentangled from its previous conditionality, and restored to a correct default position. Thoughts that arise in the mind are clearly understood as ‘rising’ in the mind, and objects experienced in the outer environment are clearly perceived as ‘external’ objects occupying time and space outside the mind. The mind is understood as the root of all perception that interprets the outer world, and as a mirror-like device that reflects (and reacts to) all stimuli originating in the outer world. In this manner, the mind purified of the dualistic illusion of a concrete (and separate) ‘subject’ and ‘object’ dichotomy that falls away as the mind re-orientates itself. This does not deny the existence of an outer, physical world, or the existence of a distinct inner, psychological realm, but removes any and all false notions of an ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ world ‘imagined’ as existing within the fabric of the mind. In this reality of dismissed and false dichotomy, the mind’s awareness perceives clearly what arises within its sensory sphere.
Is Buddhist meditational practice rational in the Marxist sense? It is rational if it remains logical and in accordance with the Buddha’s original teaching, but it is irrational if it is used to justify and sustain a religious belief system premised upon theistic entities and blind faith. In the West, for instance, Buddhist meditation has become ‘escapist’ in nature and tends to mimic the Christian monastic who empties his or herself so that they may be filled-up by the grace of god. This ‘filling-up’ with god’s grace replaces the Buddha’s highly rational and secular approach to the development of the mind. This type of Buddhism is simply just an extension of Christian theological thinking ‘disguised’ as Eastern religion. As this is the case, any type of Buddhism that pursues a theistic objective is subject to the criticism of religion developed by Marx and Engels in their theory of Scientific Socialism. This is a Buddhism based upon blind faith and a Buddha who has been hijacked by the religionists and transformed into an avatar. This type of Buddhism is part and parcel of the capitalist status quo, and fully invested in the persecution and oppression of the poor. As this is the case, a distorted Buddhism of this type is not Buddhism at all, but a charade generally practised by those members of the leisured bourgeoisie. As they have financial security, they misinterpret the relative stability and peace of mind their wealth gives them in society, for the achievement of a calm mind through Buddhist training. In reality, the distorted Buddhism they practice is simply a ‘Christianised’ distortion transformed to reflect their already privileged living conditions. The circumstantial peace and tranquillity of their stately homes – with their opulent gardens – are reflected inside the minds of the bourgeoisie quite naturally, and has nothing to do with Buddhist practice, or the transformation of the mind. The distorted Buddhism of the bourgeoisie reflects exactly the outer conditions of the bourgeoisie and has very little to do with genuine or ‘Eastern’ Buddhism. Bourgeois Buddhism is a theistic religion with no reality and fully deserves to be sternly critiqued by the Marxist method. Bourgeois Buddhism truly is an opiate that changes nothing, and is designed to maintain the unjust status quo within capitalist society. This extends to a deliberate misinterpretation of the Buddhist sutras, and is accompanied by a vicious racialisation of the Asian cultures from which Buddhism is communicated to the West. This is irrational Buddhism.
What is rational Buddhism? Rational Buddhism is the appropriate application of the Buddha’s correct message of freeing humanity (both inwardly and outwardly) from the reliance upon the ignorance of theistic religions and the agency of blind faith. Rational Buddhism is scientific in its machinations, as it is designed as a method to gather correct knowledge about the mind and its environment. The Buddha’s method is the clarification of the psychology and philosophy of perception. He rejected the Brahmanic culture and society of ancient India because he said that it was all premised upon a religious lie. Just as the god Brahma did not exist (according to the Buddha), all the traditions of the racialised caste system were not valid because they were not premised upon a valid truth. The Buddha was of the opinion that gods only appeared to exist if individuals were conditioned to ‘believe’ they existed, and he also taught that ‘rebirth’ only seemed to occur as long as an individual ‘thought’ that it existed. Enlightenment for the Buddha is a state free of the desire that generates greed, hatred and delusion, that is continuously and permanently aware of limitless and three dimensional space, and able to perfectly reflect inwardly, all that is perceived as happening in the outer, material world. Within correct Buddhism there is no god to worship and no blind faith to propagate. Proper Buddhism is an irreligious, scientific interpretation of inner and outer existence, which frees the mind from attachment to all economic and political systems. Buddhism views all historical epochs as transitory and continuously subject to change, and in many ways approaches the non-inverted definition of ‘Communism’ as presented by Marx and Engels. Marx states:
‘Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence. Moreover, the mass of propertyless workers – the utterly precarious position of labour-power on a mass scale cut off from capital or from even a limited satisfaction and, therefore, no longer merely temporarily deprived of work itself as a source of life – presupposes the world market through competition. The proletariat can thus exist world-historically, just as communism, its activity, can only have a “world-historical” existence. World-historical existence of individuals, i.e., existence of individuals which is directly linked up with world history.’
(The German Ideology: Karl Marx)[6]
The crux of the matter for the Buddhist is that Marx stated that true ‘liberation’ is not a ‘mental act’. What does this mean? Marx was criticising the essentially bourgeois philosophies that mimicked Judeo-Christian theology and simply advised their adherents to ‘give-up’ all notions of outer change, and instead simply ‘accept’ all prevailing conditions by creating an inner attitude that distorted the interpretation of what was really happening in the physical world. The tyranny of oppressive outer conditions was internalised and distorted into a purely idiosyncratic sense of ‘freedom’ that was nothing of the kind. Those enslaved by hellish external conditions still remained in the very same hellish conditions without anything changing – they were simply encouraged through the agency of ‘inverted’ thought to interpret their slavery as its exact opposite. As soon as the mind ‘thinks’ it is ‘free’ whilst it exists in an outer world that is anything but ‘free’, all things are reduced to a mythical ‘self-consciousness’ that is cut-off from the masses of humanity, and which has manoeuvred itself into a position of being mentally ‘outside’ of the historical process. For the physical body – that still suffers from the inequalities of its external environment – absolutely nothing has changed. Marx quite rightly criticised this attitude of ‘inner’ freedom that is so prevalent within the Judeo-Christian church that secured its outer, political power, by removing all external threats to it, which included the creation of a definition of ‘freedom’ that had nothing to do with actually ‘being’ free in the real sense – that is ‘free’ of external oppression. Secular philosophies copied this inverted definition of ‘freedom’ and suggested that isolated individuals could be ‘free’ irrespective of the state of humanity and the collective suffering it experienced. Marx made the point that this idealistic ‘freedom’ was not ‘free’ at all, but an illusion designed to keep humanity in a state of general oppression. If Buddhist meditation is pursued in an insular manner, and acts to isolate individuals from the greater suffering of the masses in society, then it becomes a bourgeois device for separating and isolating members of the working class from one another. In this sense Buddhist meditation would be ‘counter-revolutionary’ in essence and of no use to the revolutionary thinking of Marx.
However, if Buddhist meditation is viewed as a method of self-administered psychological hygiene, then it becomes a revolutionary method in and of itself. If meditation is used as a ‘historical’ act of emancipation from the oppression of bourgeois social conditioning, then as an act it becomes a method for collectively ‘freeing’ the working class. The Buddha rejected the very ideology that reduces existence to a ‘mental act’ and his philosophy is very much in accordance with the thinking of Marx. Just as Marxists occasionally ‘withdraw’ to study the literature of Marxist-Leninism, the act of revolutionary meditation must be viewed in the same manner. This is a withdrawing to make the human mind and body a better vehicle for progressive and advanced thought and action, which is the very essence of true and effective revolutionary behaviour. Buddhists should not meditate for the inverted reasons of religious discourse, but rather should seek to empty the mind of all inversion and become a perfect inner reflection of the outer historical process of the dialectical advancement to the state of world communism. In this manner Buddhism is the ending of all religious thinking and represents an ‘expansion’ into the real discourse of Marx and Engels. As a consequence, Buddhist meditation should be interpreted as an act of proletariat self-empowerment, and not a bourgeois act of religious worship. The Buddha was not a god, but an ordinary man who had develop a true ‘self-consciousness’ thousands of years ago. His realisation is nothing short than the ending of all religion and all inversion. Not only this, but the Buddha rejected the very essence of bourgeois existence – namely that of a permanent and unchanging ‘self’ or ‘soul’. This is a point of emancipated reality that Marx continuously hints at - but which the Buddha fully elaborated and developed. A true Buddhist is not a ‘Buddhist’ at all – but rather an individual, which through the correct use of Buddhist meditation, empties the mind of bourgeois conditioning, and becomes a perfectly pristine vehicle for proletariat existence and understanding. This is how the non-religious practice of Buddhist meditation ‘frees’ the proletariat from the most direct and obvious aspects of inner and outer bourgeois oppression and conditionality. All Marxists meditate in one form or another, and the practice of ‘Buddhist’ meditation must be understood as a crucial device for the efficient propagation of revolution amongst the masses. Meditation does not mystically ‘transform’ matter, but it does encourage the achievement and maintenance of a particular model of mental health that is conducive to personal well-being, the perpetuation of revolutionary action in the outer world that assists the working class. Buddhist meditation does not reveal a theistic god, but rather allows the practitioner to ‘perceive’ reality as it actually is, rather than as it is ‘assumed’ to be in a world of deluded, and inverted misinterpretations.
In a very real sense, the method of Buddhist meditation is a vehicle for freeing the working class from the illusion of religion, and the delusion of its theology. In this regard, the practising of meditation becomes an act of historical significance, rather than merely that of a narrow and individualistic choice. Is meditation required? In one sense ‘yes’, and in another sense ‘no’. Meditation is required if society in entirely inverted, but meditation is not required if society has transformed into a state of perfect communism. A perfect state of communism is in itself the perfect state of Buddhist enlightenment. As delusion no longer rules the roost – the Buddhist antidote for delusion is no longer required. However, if delusion is still extant, the Buddhist act of meditation is a method that the proletariat does not have to use en masse, but which can be used if circumstances permit. In the post-modern world, the method of Buddhist meditation should be a choice for the international proletariat, and not just its constituent parts that exist within Asian cultural settings (where Buddhism and Marxism are generally considered one and the same thing). Within Communist countries such as China, Vietnam and Laos, for instance, the Buddhist monastic communities (that guides the laity) have developed a working strategy that easily integrates Buddhist philosophy with Marxist thought. For the Western proletariat that has no Communist States (outside of the remarkable People’s Republic of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine), the integration of Buddhism and Marxism is at the moment mostly theoretical rather than practical. This is because the proletariat in Asia is freeing itself from religiously motivated Buddhism, whereas the Western proletariat is busy freeing itself primarily from the inverted thinking of the politicised theology of the Judeo-Christianity tradition. However, Buddhist meditation as a secular method of self-cultivation may well prove to be a very valuable weapon in the fight against bourgeois oppression, and in the fight for the establishment of communism. This is not a matter of converting Western Marxists into Eastern Buddhists, on the contrary, if Buddhist meditation is utilised in the West, it is entirely to help already existing Marxists become ‘better’ Marxists. In Asia, those steeped in institutionalised (and religious) Buddhism are busy extracting themselves from its grip (essentially re-discovering ‘true’ Buddhism), and in so doing becoming better secularised Marxists. The point for all meditators to remember is that Buddhism is not ‘Buddhism’ but rather a method for becoming free of all conditionality. This means that if meditation is practised correctly – ‘Buddhism’ – as a distinct method quite literally ‘falls away’ and is no more.
©opyright: Adrian Chan-Wyles (ShiDaDao) 2016.
[1] Tucker, C, Robert, Editor, The Marx-Engels Reader, Norton, (1978, Page 169 – The German Ideology.
[2] Jayatilleke, KN, The Message of the Buddha, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, (1975), Page 75.
[3] Rahula, Walpola, What the Buddha Taught, Gordon Fraser, (1978), Page 21.
[4] Ibid, Page 66.
[5] Rahula, Walpola, What the Buddha Taught, Gordon Fraser, (1978), Pages 20-21.
[6] Tucker, C, Robert, Editor, The Marx-Engels Reader, Norton, (1978, Page 162 – The German Ideology.
(The German Ideology: Karl Marx)[1]
‘While conscience mental activity had a physical basis, what we call a person’s mind is also conditioned by the physical environment, according to Buddhist conceptions. The physical objects of the external world among other factors stimulate the senses, generate mental activity, feed the mind and motivate one’s behaviour. The mind continues to be conditioned by these impacts, which form part and parcel of one’s accumulated mental experiences’
(The Message of the Buddha: By KN Jayatilleke)[2]
‘A word about what is meant by the term ‘mind’ (manas) in Buddhist philosophy may be useful here. It should clearly be understood that mind is not spirit as opposed to matter. It should always be remembered that Buddhism does not recognise a spirit opposed to matter, as is accepted by most other systems of philosophies and religions. Mind is only a faculty or organ (indriya) like the eye or the ear. It can be controlled and developed like any other faculty, and the Buddha speaks quite often of the value of controlling and disciplining these six faculties. The difference between the eye and the mind as faculties is that the former senses the world of colours and visible forms, while the latter senses the world of ideas and thoughts and mental objects.’
(What the Buddha Taught: By Walpola Rahula)[3]
Buddhism in the West is corrupted with idealist interpretations that have their origin firmly within Judeo-Christian theology, either in its overtly religious guise (as church rhetoric), or inherently as supposedly ‘de-religionised’ secular and political rhetoric. This stems from the inverted mythology that ‘thought’ (i.e. ‘god’) creates physical existence (i.e. the ‘universe’). The illogicality of this is that the ‘thought’ that emanates from the ‘brain’, creates the ‘brain’ that generates the ‘thought’. The correct and logical chain of events is that first a physical brain has to be developed, and that secondly, a developed brain then gives rise to thought. If a ‘thought’ has the potential to ‘generate’ physical matter out of ‘nothing’, science has yet to observe this phenomenon. The Judeo-Christian god is said to have created existence out of nothing, as an act of ‘will’. God in this instance, is a ‘thought’ generated in the mind that is mistaken as a definite object existing in the physical world. The reason no one can see god in the physical environment, is because god does not exist in the physical environment. God’s presence in the world is a non-substantiated ‘belief’, and the absence of any corroborating physical evidence is illogically interpreted as ‘proving’ that which it does not represent. No evidence is taken as ‘evidence’, and no god is taken as ‘god’. In reality, however, the thought generated in the mind has not left the very mind that has created it. It simply becomes surrounded by pure imagination and ‘projected’ into the environment – as if it existed independently of the mind that a) generated and b) perceived its presence. In this idealist state, nothing has happened at all, but to the idealist, everything has happened.
When Buddhism is distorted into an idealist projection, the Buddha becomes a god incarnate, and his teachings become a divine message with the presumed ability to transform physical matter just by directing the mind’s attention toward it. The Buddha rejects this idealism and defines his own teachings as ‘nama-rupa’, or an integrated system of mind and body. In this method, the Buddha rejected vulgar materialism, and also dismisses any notions of pure idealism. He would not accept that only the ‘mind’ existed (i.e. ‘idealism’), and he would not accept any assertions that only the ‘physical world’ existed (i.e. ‘materialism’). The Buddha describes the physical world as ‘acetasikam’, or ‘not of a psychological construction.’ The Buddha also describes the physical world as being entirely ‘independent of thought’ (citta-vippayuttam). The world of physical matter within Buddhist thought is not denied as existing, but is clearly defined:
‘Such matter is classified into three categories. First, there is the category of matter or material qualities, which are visible (sanidassanam) and can be apprehended by the senses (sappatigham) – such as colours and shapes. Secondly, there is matter which is not visible (anidassana) but reacts to stimuli (such as the five senses), as well as the objects of sense which can come into contact with the appropriate sense organs (excluding the visual objects which fall into the first category). Thirdly, there is matter which is neither visible to the naked eye nor apprehensible by the senses but whose existence can either be inferred or observed by paranormal vision. Such, for example, are the essences (oja) of edible food (kabalinkarahara), which are absorbed by our bodies and sustain it. Today we call them proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, etc, but in the Dhammasangani the essences (oja) of edible food are classified as subtle (sukhuma) matter, which is not directly observed or apprehended by the sense-organs. The subtle matter of “the realm of attenuated matter” (rupa-dhatu) would also fall into this last category.’[4]
In fact, far from being a system of idealist escape, the entirety of the Buddha’s thought is premised upon the firm foundation of the assessment of matter because it is through physical form that all life exists. Apart from the religious imaginations of ghosts and spirits, no true life can exist without a concrete presence in physicality. Within the First Noble Truth, the Buddha explains that human existence is unsatisfactory due to distorted (and inverted) interpretations of reality by the conditioned human mind that inhabits an ever changing, physical world. Existence is described as being comprised of ‘five aggregates’ which are defined as matter, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. The aggregate of matter is described as:
‘In this term ‘Aggregate of Matter’ (Rupakkhandha) are included the traditional Four Great Elements (cattari mahabhutani), namely, solidity, fluidity, heat and motion, and also Derivatives (upadaya-rupa) of the Four Great Elements. In the term ‘Derivatives of Four Great Elements’ are included our five material sense-organs, i.e., the faculties of eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body, and their corresponding objects in the external world, i.e., visible form, sound, odour, taste, and tangible things, and also some thoughts or ideas or conceptions which are in the sphere of mind-objects (dharmayatana). Thus the whole realm of matter, both internal and external, is included in the Aggregate of Matter.’[5]
The Buddha’s teaching is about disentangling the mind from the idealism of the religionists, and the vulgar materialism prevalent in his day. Although he rejects vulgar materialism, it is obvious that he does not reject the existence of ‘matter’ in and of itself. The assessment holds true for ‘idealism’ for although the Buddha clearly rejects any philosophical system that seeks to explain the outer world solely through imagination, he certainly does not reject the ‘agency of mind’. The Buddha explains that it is the incorrect ordering of the internal functions of the mind in relation to the physical world that contributes toward the cause of human suffering. The mind is conditioned to mistakenly think that things exist that do not exist, or that things do not exist that definitely do exist. This is the inverted thinking of theistic religion that has no basis in objective factuality. The Buddha’s answer to this apparent dilemma is not to escape from the world of materiality, but to instead reprogramme the mind to interpret the outer world correctly. This is achieved by restructuring the mind’s inner functionality so that it no longer mistakes thoughts in the head for objects in the environment, and objects in the environment for thoughts in the head. In this process of disciplining the mind and body through concentrated effort (i.e. ‘meditation’), the mind is calmed and disentangled from its previous conditionality, and restored to a correct default position. Thoughts that arise in the mind are clearly understood as ‘rising’ in the mind, and objects experienced in the outer environment are clearly perceived as ‘external’ objects occupying time and space outside the mind. The mind is understood as the root of all perception that interprets the outer world, and as a mirror-like device that reflects (and reacts to) all stimuli originating in the outer world. In this manner, the mind purified of the dualistic illusion of a concrete (and separate) ‘subject’ and ‘object’ dichotomy that falls away as the mind re-orientates itself. This does not deny the existence of an outer, physical world, or the existence of a distinct inner, psychological realm, but removes any and all false notions of an ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ world ‘imagined’ as existing within the fabric of the mind. In this reality of dismissed and false dichotomy, the mind’s awareness perceives clearly what arises within its sensory sphere.
Is Buddhist meditational practice rational in the Marxist sense? It is rational if it remains logical and in accordance with the Buddha’s original teaching, but it is irrational if it is used to justify and sustain a religious belief system premised upon theistic entities and blind faith. In the West, for instance, Buddhist meditation has become ‘escapist’ in nature and tends to mimic the Christian monastic who empties his or herself so that they may be filled-up by the grace of god. This ‘filling-up’ with god’s grace replaces the Buddha’s highly rational and secular approach to the development of the mind. This type of Buddhism is simply just an extension of Christian theological thinking ‘disguised’ as Eastern religion. As this is the case, any type of Buddhism that pursues a theistic objective is subject to the criticism of religion developed by Marx and Engels in their theory of Scientific Socialism. This is a Buddhism based upon blind faith and a Buddha who has been hijacked by the religionists and transformed into an avatar. This type of Buddhism is part and parcel of the capitalist status quo, and fully invested in the persecution and oppression of the poor. As this is the case, a distorted Buddhism of this type is not Buddhism at all, but a charade generally practised by those members of the leisured bourgeoisie. As they have financial security, they misinterpret the relative stability and peace of mind their wealth gives them in society, for the achievement of a calm mind through Buddhist training. In reality, the distorted Buddhism they practice is simply a ‘Christianised’ distortion transformed to reflect their already privileged living conditions. The circumstantial peace and tranquillity of their stately homes – with their opulent gardens – are reflected inside the minds of the bourgeoisie quite naturally, and has nothing to do with Buddhist practice, or the transformation of the mind. The distorted Buddhism of the bourgeoisie reflects exactly the outer conditions of the bourgeoisie and has very little to do with genuine or ‘Eastern’ Buddhism. Bourgeois Buddhism is a theistic religion with no reality and fully deserves to be sternly critiqued by the Marxist method. Bourgeois Buddhism truly is an opiate that changes nothing, and is designed to maintain the unjust status quo within capitalist society. This extends to a deliberate misinterpretation of the Buddhist sutras, and is accompanied by a vicious racialisation of the Asian cultures from which Buddhism is communicated to the West. This is irrational Buddhism.
What is rational Buddhism? Rational Buddhism is the appropriate application of the Buddha’s correct message of freeing humanity (both inwardly and outwardly) from the reliance upon the ignorance of theistic religions and the agency of blind faith. Rational Buddhism is scientific in its machinations, as it is designed as a method to gather correct knowledge about the mind and its environment. The Buddha’s method is the clarification of the psychology and philosophy of perception. He rejected the Brahmanic culture and society of ancient India because he said that it was all premised upon a religious lie. Just as the god Brahma did not exist (according to the Buddha), all the traditions of the racialised caste system were not valid because they were not premised upon a valid truth. The Buddha was of the opinion that gods only appeared to exist if individuals were conditioned to ‘believe’ they existed, and he also taught that ‘rebirth’ only seemed to occur as long as an individual ‘thought’ that it existed. Enlightenment for the Buddha is a state free of the desire that generates greed, hatred and delusion, that is continuously and permanently aware of limitless and three dimensional space, and able to perfectly reflect inwardly, all that is perceived as happening in the outer, material world. Within correct Buddhism there is no god to worship and no blind faith to propagate. Proper Buddhism is an irreligious, scientific interpretation of inner and outer existence, which frees the mind from attachment to all economic and political systems. Buddhism views all historical epochs as transitory and continuously subject to change, and in many ways approaches the non-inverted definition of ‘Communism’ as presented by Marx and Engels. Marx states:
‘Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence. Moreover, the mass of propertyless workers – the utterly precarious position of labour-power on a mass scale cut off from capital or from even a limited satisfaction and, therefore, no longer merely temporarily deprived of work itself as a source of life – presupposes the world market through competition. The proletariat can thus exist world-historically, just as communism, its activity, can only have a “world-historical” existence. World-historical existence of individuals, i.e., existence of individuals which is directly linked up with world history.’
(The German Ideology: Karl Marx)[6]
The crux of the matter for the Buddhist is that Marx stated that true ‘liberation’ is not a ‘mental act’. What does this mean? Marx was criticising the essentially bourgeois philosophies that mimicked Judeo-Christian theology and simply advised their adherents to ‘give-up’ all notions of outer change, and instead simply ‘accept’ all prevailing conditions by creating an inner attitude that distorted the interpretation of what was really happening in the physical world. The tyranny of oppressive outer conditions was internalised and distorted into a purely idiosyncratic sense of ‘freedom’ that was nothing of the kind. Those enslaved by hellish external conditions still remained in the very same hellish conditions without anything changing – they were simply encouraged through the agency of ‘inverted’ thought to interpret their slavery as its exact opposite. As soon as the mind ‘thinks’ it is ‘free’ whilst it exists in an outer world that is anything but ‘free’, all things are reduced to a mythical ‘self-consciousness’ that is cut-off from the masses of humanity, and which has manoeuvred itself into a position of being mentally ‘outside’ of the historical process. For the physical body – that still suffers from the inequalities of its external environment – absolutely nothing has changed. Marx quite rightly criticised this attitude of ‘inner’ freedom that is so prevalent within the Judeo-Christian church that secured its outer, political power, by removing all external threats to it, which included the creation of a definition of ‘freedom’ that had nothing to do with actually ‘being’ free in the real sense – that is ‘free’ of external oppression. Secular philosophies copied this inverted definition of ‘freedom’ and suggested that isolated individuals could be ‘free’ irrespective of the state of humanity and the collective suffering it experienced. Marx made the point that this idealistic ‘freedom’ was not ‘free’ at all, but an illusion designed to keep humanity in a state of general oppression. If Buddhist meditation is pursued in an insular manner, and acts to isolate individuals from the greater suffering of the masses in society, then it becomes a bourgeois device for separating and isolating members of the working class from one another. In this sense Buddhist meditation would be ‘counter-revolutionary’ in essence and of no use to the revolutionary thinking of Marx.
However, if Buddhist meditation is viewed as a method of self-administered psychological hygiene, then it becomes a revolutionary method in and of itself. If meditation is used as a ‘historical’ act of emancipation from the oppression of bourgeois social conditioning, then as an act it becomes a method for collectively ‘freeing’ the working class. The Buddha rejected the very ideology that reduces existence to a ‘mental act’ and his philosophy is very much in accordance with the thinking of Marx. Just as Marxists occasionally ‘withdraw’ to study the literature of Marxist-Leninism, the act of revolutionary meditation must be viewed in the same manner. This is a withdrawing to make the human mind and body a better vehicle for progressive and advanced thought and action, which is the very essence of true and effective revolutionary behaviour. Buddhists should not meditate for the inverted reasons of religious discourse, but rather should seek to empty the mind of all inversion and become a perfect inner reflection of the outer historical process of the dialectical advancement to the state of world communism. In this manner Buddhism is the ending of all religious thinking and represents an ‘expansion’ into the real discourse of Marx and Engels. As a consequence, Buddhist meditation should be interpreted as an act of proletariat self-empowerment, and not a bourgeois act of religious worship. The Buddha was not a god, but an ordinary man who had develop a true ‘self-consciousness’ thousands of years ago. His realisation is nothing short than the ending of all religion and all inversion. Not only this, but the Buddha rejected the very essence of bourgeois existence – namely that of a permanent and unchanging ‘self’ or ‘soul’. This is a point of emancipated reality that Marx continuously hints at - but which the Buddha fully elaborated and developed. A true Buddhist is not a ‘Buddhist’ at all – but rather an individual, which through the correct use of Buddhist meditation, empties the mind of bourgeois conditioning, and becomes a perfectly pristine vehicle for proletariat existence and understanding. This is how the non-religious practice of Buddhist meditation ‘frees’ the proletariat from the most direct and obvious aspects of inner and outer bourgeois oppression and conditionality. All Marxists meditate in one form or another, and the practice of ‘Buddhist’ meditation must be understood as a crucial device for the efficient propagation of revolution amongst the masses. Meditation does not mystically ‘transform’ matter, but it does encourage the achievement and maintenance of a particular model of mental health that is conducive to personal well-being, the perpetuation of revolutionary action in the outer world that assists the working class. Buddhist meditation does not reveal a theistic god, but rather allows the practitioner to ‘perceive’ reality as it actually is, rather than as it is ‘assumed’ to be in a world of deluded, and inverted misinterpretations.
In a very real sense, the method of Buddhist meditation is a vehicle for freeing the working class from the illusion of religion, and the delusion of its theology. In this regard, the practising of meditation becomes an act of historical significance, rather than merely that of a narrow and individualistic choice. Is meditation required? In one sense ‘yes’, and in another sense ‘no’. Meditation is required if society in entirely inverted, but meditation is not required if society has transformed into a state of perfect communism. A perfect state of communism is in itself the perfect state of Buddhist enlightenment. As delusion no longer rules the roost – the Buddhist antidote for delusion is no longer required. However, if delusion is still extant, the Buddhist act of meditation is a method that the proletariat does not have to use en masse, but which can be used if circumstances permit. In the post-modern world, the method of Buddhist meditation should be a choice for the international proletariat, and not just its constituent parts that exist within Asian cultural settings (where Buddhism and Marxism are generally considered one and the same thing). Within Communist countries such as China, Vietnam and Laos, for instance, the Buddhist monastic communities (that guides the laity) have developed a working strategy that easily integrates Buddhist philosophy with Marxist thought. For the Western proletariat that has no Communist States (outside of the remarkable People’s Republic of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine), the integration of Buddhism and Marxism is at the moment mostly theoretical rather than practical. This is because the proletariat in Asia is freeing itself from religiously motivated Buddhism, whereas the Western proletariat is busy freeing itself primarily from the inverted thinking of the politicised theology of the Judeo-Christianity tradition. However, Buddhist meditation as a secular method of self-cultivation may well prove to be a very valuable weapon in the fight against bourgeois oppression, and in the fight for the establishment of communism. This is not a matter of converting Western Marxists into Eastern Buddhists, on the contrary, if Buddhist meditation is utilised in the West, it is entirely to help already existing Marxists become ‘better’ Marxists. In Asia, those steeped in institutionalised (and religious) Buddhism are busy extracting themselves from its grip (essentially re-discovering ‘true’ Buddhism), and in so doing becoming better secularised Marxists. The point for all meditators to remember is that Buddhism is not ‘Buddhism’ but rather a method for becoming free of all conditionality. This means that if meditation is practised correctly – ‘Buddhism’ – as a distinct method quite literally ‘falls away’ and is no more.
©opyright: Adrian Chan-Wyles (ShiDaDao) 2016.
[1] Tucker, C, Robert, Editor, The Marx-Engels Reader, Norton, (1978, Page 169 – The German Ideology.
[2] Jayatilleke, KN, The Message of the Buddha, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, (1975), Page 75.
[3] Rahula, Walpola, What the Buddha Taught, Gordon Fraser, (1978), Page 21.
[4] Ibid, Page 66.
[5] Rahula, Walpola, What the Buddha Taught, Gordon Fraser, (1978), Pages 20-21.
[6] Tucker, C, Robert, Editor, The Marx-Engels Reader, Norton, (1978, Page 162 – The German Ideology.